Illinois officials call to abolish history

[BobK]

If you don't like history, don't teach it?

Community leaders in Illinois called for history classes in state schools to stop until a " suitable alternative" is established to represent minority groups in the curriculum.
Democratic State Representative LaShawn K. Ford said "current history teachings lead to a racist society and overlook the contributions of women and minorities,"

From https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loc...llinois-to-eliminate-history-classes/2315752/ :

At a news conference, State Rep. LaShawn K. Ford said current history teachings lead to a racist society and overlook the contributions of women and minorities.

Before the event Sunday, Rep. Ford's office distributed a news release "Rep. Ford Today in Evanston to Call for the Abolishment of History Classes in Illinois Schools," in which Ford asked the ISBOE and school districts to immediately remove history curriculum and books that "unfairly communicate" history "until a suitable alternative is developed."

 

[Downhill Dino]

Do they have examples or did someone not pay attention in school?

 

[dlshearon]

Until they stop hitting the “high points” of history and not going in detail, we’ll be in this viscous circle. It would also be great if they worked on critical thinking a little more.

 

[Joey D]

I've been out of school for 15 years now, so maybe something has changed, but I always felt history was taught pretty poorly. Points that should've been taught were glossed over and US history essentially stopped around WWII since either the textbooks didn't cover anything else, or we just ran out of time. Skipping over the Cold War, Vietnam, the Space Race, and even the Korean War seems to leave out a huge chunk of information that helps explain why America is the way it is today.

Also, we still teach things that are false as fact. The best example of this is Christopher Columbus. This might be different now, but I definitely grew up being taught that Columbus found America, despite never setting foot on any piece of land outside the Caribbean. He was also beat by the Norse cultures by 400 years. It wasn't until college that I was taught something different.

World History was even more of a cluster while in school, especially ancient world history. I get that learning that stuff isn't super important in the grand scheme of things, but if we're going to teach it, it needs to be taught correctly.

We still should teach history, but it really does need a big revamp.

 

[TexRex]

This is fun.

James William Loewen, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Vermont, author of the critically acclaimed Lies My Teacher Told Me - Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, which chronicles misinformation propagated in American history curriculum, and a man who totally rocks the Lincoln beard, collaborated with colleagues and students to write a state history textbook, Mississippi: Conflict and Change.

The textbook, published in 1974, garnered positive reviews, but the Mississippi State Textbook Purchasing Board rejected it on the grounds that it was racially inflammatory. Loewen and two of his collaborators, joined by numerous other defendants, challenged the board's decision in a lawsuit, Loewen v. Turnipseed.

Per Wikipedia, Judge Orma R. Smith of the U.S. District Court ruled that the rejection of the textbook was not based on "justifiable grounds", and that the authors were denied their right to free speech and press.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

Loewen [in part of the response to a question asked during the interview]: The assistant attorney general for the state of Mississippi asked why he had voted against our book. And he had us turn to [a] page where there's a photo of a lynching. Now, our textbook at that time was the only textbook in America that included a photo of a lynching. And ironically almost none do to this day.

Turnipseed is on the stand and he says: "Now, you know, some ninth-graders, especially black male ninth-graders, are pretty big, and I worried that teachers, especially white lady teachers, would have trouble controlling their classes with material like this in the book."

...

The judge — who was an [older] white Mississippian, but a man of honor — took over the questioning, and he said, "But that happened, didn't it? Didn't Mississippi have more lynchings than any other state?" And Turnipseed said, and again I quote, "Well, yes, but that all happened so long ago. Why dwell on it now?" And the judge said, "Well, it is a history book."

What!? You don't want students to be educated about violent acts perpetrated against black people because some of them who are big and black may perpetrate violent acts against white ladies guiding them through such education?!

That's irrational. Of course, such a reaction from big black students would also be irrational, but that isn't an assertion that they are inherently irrational.

 

[Danoff]

This seems more than relevant.



I think much of what Oliver is saying is echoed (at least to an extent) right here in my own account of why I came out of my 20s still somewhat confused about the civil war.

I learned about the civil war first in American history class (7th grade) in Texas. I remember asking the teacher which side won, so my folks hadn't exactly done the job prior. Public school was full of useless info like memorizing dates, specific battles, memorizing the Gettysburg Address (like that would automatically mean understanding it). I definitely learned that there were two sides to the fight, and they didn't agree on what the fight was about. I learned that the North was fighting over slavery (which isn't quite accurate) and that the south was fighting for their rights and "way of life", which happened to include slavery. I knew that it was a war over slavery ultimately, but I thought that the slavery argument was mostly supplied by the North, whereas the South was feeling that their whole society was being attacked. That the North was trying to ruin their economy, and force the southern states against something they felt the states had a right to do. My parents, who had not even bothered to mention it up to that point, continued to not mention it.

I took American history again in college (Texas). We were presented with a more complete picture of the civil war, but one which included all of the typical southern arguments (mostly repeated after the war) for why the civil war occurred. States rights, the uneven balance in voting power between slave states and free states. The threatening of the way of life of the south. I don't remember seeing any of the actual quotes from southern leaders and officials who never mentioned "way of life" and instead mentioned slavery.

When I met my wife I got re-educated by her (racist) parents on what the civil war was really about, which was that the North wanted a strong federal government that could impose its will on the south, and erode the rights that were reserved for the states. Lincoln was essentially cast as a bloodthirsty tyrant, who was bent on attacking a peaceful southern people who simply wanted to be left alone and not have their property (slaves) seized. Destruction of slavery would destroy the southern economy, and leave everyone starving and destitute (white and black people alike). It had nothing to do with slavery, they were trying to end slavery on their own. It had everything to do with freedom from tyranny.

I didn't exactly accept that re-education uncritically. But I did find it intriguing. I think when I heard it it gelled with an intuition that things are never quite as simple as they seem. And so this nuanced argument made a lot of sense, and it had a truthy feel to it. Maybe the south had a more intellectual claim than I had been led to believe... That was basically the state of things prior to my own investigation, which led to that quote and others.

I really wish that my college history class hadn't been quite so even handed with the presentation of it. We should have been hit over the head a little more with actual racist quotes from actual leaders of the time. Instead I think that course really enjoyed delving into the little niches of arguments. It was like they were prepared for everyone to come in demonizing the south and wanted to let you know that they were real people with real motives. I think they wanted to leave the students with the sense that it was a deep tragedy, with respect for both sides. And I get that, but not at the expense of brutal truths, which is what I think happened.

This is not to say that my college course shied away from the details and horrors of slavery and the battles of the civil war. Some brutal truths were definitely revealed. But I do not recall the motivations being so clearly pinpointed. In fact, what I remember is that the south felt like they had the better cause. I was taught that the southern people were fighting for prosperity, for independence, for freedom, for their homes. And that might have been true at the soldier level. But the confederacy was motivated by slavery.

Maybe I was a bad student. I didn't like non-engineering courses.

 

[huskeR32]

If you don't like history, don't teach it?

I assume the ? at the end there means you're not sure if you're accurately summing up the argument. Well, you aren't. A better summary would be:

If you object to generations of Americans being taught a version of history that minimizes the contributions of marginalized groups and glosses over much of the abhorrent behavior in this country's past, and you believe that it's not really worth continuing to teach the same old inaccurate material any longer, then step back from the table and re-think the whole thing.

 

[TexRex]

I think much of what Oliver is saying is echoed (at least to an extent) right here in my own account of why I came out of my 20s still somewhat confused about the civil war.

I learned about the civil war first in American history class (7th grade) in Texas. I remember asking the teacher which side won, so my folks hadn't exactly done the job prior. Public school was full of useless info like memorizing dates, specific battles, memorizing the Gettysburg Address (like that would automatically mean understanding it). I definitely learned that there were two sides to the fight, and they didn't agree on what the fight was about. I learned that the North was fighting over slavery (which isn't quite accurate) and that the south was fighting for their rights and "way of life", which happened to include slavery. I knew that it was a war over slavery ultimately, but I thought that the slavery argument was mostly supplied by the North, whereas the South was feeling that their whole society was being attacked. That the North was trying to ruin their economy, and force the southern states against something they felt the states had a right to do. My parents, who had not even bothered to mention it up to that point, continued to not mention it.

I took American history again in college (Texas). We were presented with a more complete picture of the civil war, but one which included all of the typical southern arguments (mostly repeated after the war) for why the civil war occurred. States rights, the uneven balance in voting power between slave states and free states. The threatening of the way of life of the south. I don't remember seeing any of the actual quotes from southern leaders and officials who never mentioned "way of life" and instead mentioned slavery.

When I met my wife I got re-educated by her (racist) parents on what the civil war was really about, which was that the North wanted a strong federal government that could impose its will on the south, and erode the rights that were reserved for the states. Lincoln was essentially cast as a bloodthirsty tyrant, who was bent on attacking a peaceful southern people who simply wanted to be left alone and not have their property (slaves) seized. Destruction of slavery would destroy the southern economy, and leave everyone starving and destitute (white and black people alike). It had nothing to do with slavery, they were trying to end slavery on their own. It had everything to do with freedom from tyranny.

I didn't exactly accept that re-education uncritically. But I did find it intriguing. I think when I heard it it gelled with an intuition that things are never quite as simple as they seem. And so this nuanced argument made a lot of sense, and it had a truthy feel to it. Maybe the south had a more intellectual claim than I had been led to believe... That was basically the state of things prior to my own investigation, which led to that quote and others.

I really wish that my college history class hadn't been quite so even handed with the presentation of it. We should have been hit over the head a little more with actual racist quotes from actual leaders of the time. Instead I think that course really enjoyed delving into the little niches of arguments. It was like they were prepared for everyone to come in demonizing the south and wanted to let you know that they were real people with real motives. I think they wanted to leave the students with the sense that it was a deep tragedy, with respect for both sides. And I get that, but not at the expense of brutal truths, which is what I think happened.

This is not to say that my college course shied away from the details and horrors of slavery and the battles of the civil war. Some brutal truths were definitely revealed. But I do not recall the motivations being so clearly pinpointed. In fact, what I remember is that the south felt like they had the better cause. I was taught that the southern people were fighting for prosperity, for independence, for freedom, for their homes. And that might have been true at the soldier level. But the confederacy was motivated by slavery.

Maybe I was a bad student. I didn't like non-engineering courses.

That. Was. Epic.

 

[UKMikey]

What!? You don't want students to be educated about violent acts perpetrated against black people because some of them who are big and black may perpetrate violent acts against white ladies guiding them through such education?!

I get the feeling that this is why I never learned about Enoch Powell's "Rivers of blood" speech at school, though as one of only a handful of people of colour in my entire year I'm not sure I would've helped form much of a mob. As you can see it wasn't black people being incited by the inflammatory language therein.

Luckily my dad was around to educate me regarding the speech.

 

[Jawehawk]

I've been out of school for 15 years now, so maybe something has changed, but I always felt history was taught pretty poorly. Points that should've been taught were glossed over and US history essentially stopped around WWII since either the textbooks didn't cover anything else, or we just ran out of time. Skipping over the Cold War, Vietnam, the Space Race, and even the Korean War seems to leave out a huge chunk of information that helps explain why America is the way it is today.

Also, we still teach things that are false as fact. The best example of this is Christopher Columbus. This might be different now, but I definitely grew up being taught that Columbus found America, despite never setting foot on any piece of land outside the Caribbean. He was also beat by the Norse cultures by 400 years. It wasn't until college that I was taught something different.

World History was even more of a cluster while in school, especially ancient world history. I get that learning that stuff isn't super important in the grand scheme of things, but if we're going to teach it, it needs to be taught correctly.

We still should teach history, but it really does need a big revamp.

I am by no means well read on Columbus, however....

The Columbus expeditions discovery of Cuba and other small islands off the coast of America led to colonization (of the islands and eventually America itself) and the recognition throughout contemporary Europe of there being a continent there. The earlier Viking settlements led to no such thing. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to say that Columbus, or rather, his expedition discovered America, or that it at least provided the circumstances from which the discovery of America could unfold. History is too complex to ever use such simplistic language as person A discovered/did B because of C. But the basic premise (the discovery of America) holds true when seen from the context of its time. It is not a falsehood so much as it is an oversimplification.

If you want to truly cover important historical subjects with the scrutiny they deserve in primary school and high school you have to have several teachers for each history class. No one is going to be well versed in everything. Also, ditch any notion of standardized curriculum for history, so as to afford the teachers with the opportunity to formulate their own courses with actually exciting material, as opposed to relying on the government (ministry of education) mandated dreary garbage that you'll usually find in school. Sure, there will be some awful teachers who will fail to deliver a good and educational course, but that is still preferable to everyone getting a garbage standard course mandated by the government.

- - -​

Frankly, I am reading the articles posted in the OP as nothing more than wanting to force a new narrative, rather than a genuine desire for better history education. Just one more case of the left wanting to push their own narratives...

 

[DesertPenguin]

This seems more than relevant.



I think much of what Oliver is saying is echoed (at least to an extent) right here in my own account of why I came out of my 20s still somewhat confused about the civil war.

Beat me to it.

 

[FerrariF1GT]

I just graduated from high school this past May, to put context into things.

My US history classes went from pre-colonization to the 2008 election and recession. The textbooks viewed major events in a critical lens, citing views of people who opposed things like the revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal, the atomic bombings, just to name a few. They didn’t hesitate to say that our country’s history isn’t perfect nor did they romanticize certain presidents for what they did. In class I was expected to discuss the lasting impacts major events have on me, communities around me, the US, and the world to this day, both the positives and negatives. In short, I’d say the education system has changed since Danoff was in it.

The best way we can teach history to students, in my opinion, is to make them understand that historical events reflect the culture of the time and we can’t undo what people in the past have done, but we can take a critical lens and analyze how history affects society as it stands right now. I know I’m probably missing something.

 

[TexRex]

I assume the ? at the end there means you're not sure if you're accurately summing up the argument. Well, you aren't. A better summary would be:

If you object to generations of Americans being taught a version of history that minimizes the contributions of marginalized groups and glosses over much of the abhorrent behavior in this country's past, and you believe that it's not really worth continuing to teach the same old inaccurate material any longer, then step back from the table and re-think the whole thing.

Yeah, I'm surprised he didn't begin that with "So you're saying..."

Unrelated, I'm pleased that he managed to work out the apparent difficulty he had accessing Yahoo News articles on an earlier occasion. Except I suspect there was no such difficulty and the remark was instead part of a popular right-wing narrative, to which I alluded, that alleges liberal media (often referred to as "MSM" or "mainstream media," though these conveniently disregard the absolutely, staggeringly, massively mainstream stature of the right-wing propagandists over at Fox News) avoids publishing articles or airing segments that would purportedly prove inconvenient for those who oppose Trump.

Trumpism, man.

 

[UKMikey]

Frankly, I am reading the articles posted in the OP as nothing more than wanting to force a new narrative, rather than a genuine desire for better history education. Just one more case of the left wanting to push their own narratives...

Do you not believe history teaching needs to be reevaluated and think it's fine as it is? Because that also comes across as wanting to force your own narrative.

I feel that an inclusive teaching of history is by definition better because it's more complete.

 

[Blitz24]

I just graduated from high school this past May, to put context into things.

My US history classes went from pre-colonization to the 2008 election and recession. The textbooks were viewed major events in a critical lens, citing views of people who opposed things like the revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal, the atomic bombings, just to name a few. They didn’t hesitate to say that our country’s history isn’t perfect nor did they romanticize certain presidents for what they did. In class I was expected to discuss the lasting impacts major events have on me, communities around me, the US, and the world to this day, both the positives and negatives. In short, I’d say the education system has changed since Danoff was in it.

The best way we can teach history to students, in my opinion, is to make them understand that historical events were products of the time and we can’t undo what people in the past have done, but we can take a critical lens and analyze how history affects society as it stands right now. I know I’m probably missing something.

This is good to hear that they finally got past the stumbling block that is/was the Carter Administration. When I left high school about 15 years ago, that was pretty much the last thing I learned in US History.

 

[DesertPenguin]

This is good to hear that they finally got past the stumbling block that is/was the Carter Administration. When I left high school about 15 years ago, that was pretty much the last thing I learned in US History.

That's crazy. I was in high school from 2002-2006 and I remember learning about the first Bush administration. We definitely covered the 80s, that's for sure.

 

[Blitz24]

That's crazy. I was in high school from 2002-2006 and I remember learning about the first Bush administration. We definitely covered the 80s, that's for sure.

Exactly same time frame as myself. We MAY have learned about it in senior year, but that was AP US History and maybe it wasn't covered. I know for a fact I didn't learn much about the early 90s.

 

[Jawehawk]

Do you not believe history teaching needs to be reevaluated and think it's fine as it is? Because that also comes across as wanting to force your own narrative.

I feel that an inclusive teaching of history is by definition better because it's more complete.

I believe in the need of reevaluating how we teach critical thinking, as well as a need of putting into focus how to approach history so as to curtail the weaponizing of it. Given just how much material there is to work with in history, it is fair, I think, to say that it is far harder to dictate a necessary curriculum for it than say math or biology. How do we determine what is absolutely essential knowledge? On the one hand, you have historic events that, on account of their contemporary impact, deserve mention, even if they're no longer relevant. On the other hand, you have historic events that continue to impact modern politics would seem an obvious inclusion. For the US, that automatically means that the civil rights movements throughout the 20th century deserve a thorough handling, given that it still impacts politics today. But how do you address it? Do you do it in a balanced, in as far as is possible, fashion? That would get my vote. What I fear is that the (American) left is so focused on its campaign that it wants to teach history in a way that reinforces its own goals, while painting differing positions in a negative light. People, especially young people still in their formative years, should be allowed to form their own ideas based on fair information.

The tools of the history trade, critical thinking, distancing oneself from the subject matter and the ability to seek out conflicting sources to name a few, are far more important than history per say. Inclusiveness holds no value when it is done for no other reason than to be inclusive.

I don't know what the curriculum in the US is, or even if it is shared by all states or handled independently, but I have difficulty in taking serious any allegations of it being "unfair" without appropriate evidence going along with such allegations. My difficulty in the same is only increased by the current climate of the US, and its ability to foster reaction by either side of the political spectrum. If the argumentation is based solely on there not being enough representation of any given entity (how does one define what is enough?), then I cannot take it seriously. Naturally, given the abundance of history, a lot of material won't make the cut, which can be at least somewhat offset by relying less on a standard curriculum and more on independently run courses. Different people with different knowledge breeds discussion which in turn breeds enlightenment.

 

[Tornado]

I can't believe they are canceling showing Gone With the Wind in school.




Incidentally, I was in public school a little bit more recently than Joey and I still didn't get a grasp of what Colombus actually (as opposed to "discovered America") did until I started taking college classes in my junior year. I can't imagine a huge recession has increased school funding enough to fix that since then, so it's probably not too bad an idea to take a more critical eye towards what kids are taught regarding what actually happened.

Though I will say that luckily our curriculum at least went through the Berlin Wall coming down.

 

[VBR]

Abolishing History altogether is patently absurd. Whatever ends up being done, I think we need far more Critical Thinking being taught in Western education, generally speaking, & much less Critical Theory™ (preferably none at all).

 

[huskeR32]

I don't know what the curriculum in the US is, or even if it is shared by all states or handled independently, but I have difficulty in taking serious any allegations of it being "unfair" without appropriate evidence going along with such allegations.

It's handled state by state, for the most part. And there have been several people in this thread who've told you what their experiences were. Your difficulty taking those experiences seriously, along with your hand-wringing about lefty "campaigns" show that you're far from an impartial observer here.

 

[Grand Prix]

My Grade 8 social studies teacher basically summed up the entire medieval period with Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yes, a comedy that parodies Arthurian legend was used at least once in a history class. That was an entertaining couple of classes, but quite poor in educational value, and no doubt mislead quite a few students about the medieval period.

You can learn so much more about history outside of the history class these days (no, I'm not talking about movies and crappy documentaries ). Much of what is currently taught in history class is garbage anyway, so I think the goal of history class should be to provide a rough overview of lets say, the past 3000 years, and let people research the particular periods they are interested in themselves. Don't make students memorize dates that have no context behind them. History is so much more than just dates. It is better to understand the context behind why England continued to use the longbow against men-at-arms in full-plate harness (a hint: not all soldiers were wearing full-plate harness), and additionally, why the full-plate harness was developed and used. If you can understand the context behind the decisions that people made in the past, the memory of when they occurred should come naturally. This, of course, requires additional time to be taught.

Another problem in how history is taught, is that some teachers try very hard to show that people in older civilizations were dumber than people in our modern society. It's nonsense. Humans did not progress in a linear fashion, and the human brain itself has not changed much in thousands of years, if at all. What did change were social norms, technology, and everything affected by them. History lessons should show this.

For an example, a lot of people misunderstand why we abandoned bronze for making weapons out of: It's not because iron was "better" than bronze, rather, people started using iron out of necessity, as making bronze weapons on a large scale was no longer feasible, due to a change in trade relations (copper and tin were not often found in the same part of the world). Bronze weapons could be cast, if they got bent on the battlefield it was easy enough to un-bend them, and they could be as sharp as any iron or steel weapon. In contrast, iron weapons needed to be forged (a very laborious process) to be effective, they could rust, and instead of bending they would often break. It was when spring steel came in abundance that we found a "superior" material to bronze. When you see the Bronze Age - Iron Age transition in context, you can begin to understand why the Iron Age was so short compared to the Bronze and Steel Ages. (Although the natural transition from iron to steel no doubt played a part, and oftentimes throughout history steel has been made by accident.)

To sum up, history should help you realize that humans can be quite ingenious, no matter the tools at their disposal, no matter the time period they were in.

 

[Jawehawk]

It's handled state by state, for the most part. And there have been several people in this thread who've told you what their experiences were. Your difficulty taking those experiences seriously, along with your hand-wringing about lefty "campaigns" show that you're far from an impartial observer here.

Anecdotal evidence does not constitute evidence of systematic problems. Ideally, evidence is supplied by the people making the allegations in the first place. I'm aware that the right has a "dog" in this too and that they too have and will attempt to shape what is taught to suit their own narrative. This, however, does not appear to be the case in the specific example cited in the OP.

 

[UKMikey]

Anecdotal evidence does not constitute evidence of systematic problems. Ideally, evidence is supplied by the people making the allegations in the first place. I'm aware that the right has a "dog" in this too and that they too have and will attempt to shape what is taught to suit their own narrative. This, however, does not appear to be the case in the specific example cited in the OP.

The impression I get is that they're not talking about "abolishing history" or history lessons permanently unlike the thread title suggests.

Attendees at Sunday’s press conference will discuss how current history teaching practices overlook the contributions by Women and members of the Black, Jewish, LGBTQ communities and other groups. These individuals are pushing for an immediate change in history changing practice starting this school year.

That sounds to me like they want to get people around a table and discuss the way to go forward. Is there any evidence that they're excluding non-left wingers from the conversation? Or should things stay as they are? Because that position requires evidence to support it as well.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Sounds similar to decolonising libraries.

Some people screamed "book burning" but the reality is anything but.